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Zosia Mamet Talks About Quitting a Popular Show at 19
Former Girls actress Zosia Mamet explained the reason behind her sudden walk-off from a hit show at the age of 19. Fans were baffled and speculated that her quitting was related to the time she did two seasons of Mad Men.
Currently, it looks like Zosia Mamet is giving us clues about what made her quit Mad Men. She revealed the cause of her abrupt leaving from a guest appearance on a great show for two seasons at a very young age, which is the time her character Joyce Ramsay in the AMC drama.
A Tense Encounter on Set Led to Zosia Mamet’s Departure
Zosia, who was part of Mad Men for its fourth and fifth seasons, between 2010 and 2012, in the end, her decision to exit the series went beyond just a single incident with the showrunner of the show.
“We were rehearsing the blocking when he came on set,” the 37-year-old told her new essay collection Does This Make Me Funny?, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. “The scene was really short and simple. I was coming into the office, informing everyone that I had photos of something important, taking them out of the manila envelope that I was carrying, and putting them on the table.”
But on a run-through, Mamet remembered that the showrunner, whose identity she did not disclose, took over the director’s authority and called, “cut,” in an abrupt manner.
A Harsh Confrontation on Set
“We all glanced at each other, like, ‘Did someone do something wrong?’ We all thought the scene was going okay,” Zosia remembered, explaining how the showrunner abruptly came up to her. “He takes a few more beats before he lifts his head, looks at me, and says, ‘What the f–k are you doing?’”
George Mamet, however, says that the showrunner was unhappy with the way she took the paper out of the envelope. She described the incident in a coerced reenactment of the scene which was done over and over again: “He forced me to do the scene over and over again until he was satisfied.”
The Paramet raised voices had escalated to a shouting match. “At first, he just raises his voice, which escalates to yelling, and then eventually, he turns into screaming,” she said. After he accused her of almost every wrongdoing for a bit less than thirty minutes, Mamet recalled, “Eventually he gave up or got bored. But this lasted for about a half hour.”
Walking Away for Good
Zosia added, “Nobody tried to stop him; he just yelled at me and everyone just looked at their shoes.” She said, right after the incident she called her agents to inform them that she was finished with the work.
“There were supposed to be four more episodes for that season, and I wasn’t even counting the one I was on,” she said. “I told them that I didn’t care what they did, whether the network took them to court or which, I was not going to be on that set anymore than I was going to be there, hence I was not going to do another one.”
Honoring the Work Despite the Exit
Zosia still has no doubt that her time on the set matters. She really emphasized that she was not only satisfied with the people she worked with but also with the atmosphere of the set. “In the end, it really won a lot of awards and generally did well in the ratings,” she remembered. “It was absolutely right. It’s one of the best shows on TV, and I can’t believe I was put in such a position to be part of it.”
After she distributed her essays, several web users attempted to fathom her citations and assumed that she could be mentioning Mad Men—particularly a scene in episode 4 of season 5, where her character gives a manila envelope to Elisabeth Moss’ Peggy Olson.
Finding Closure Years Later
The series that also featured Jon Hamm, January Jones, and Christina Hendricks, among others, went on to be very successful winning in total 16 Emmy Awards and five Golden Globes throughout its seven seasons.
Unfortunately, in 2017, there was a scandal in the Mad Men universe as showrunner Matthew Weiner was indicted by a former writer who alleged that the creator made an aggressive work environment. Matthew has denied these claims.
Moreover, while Zosia hasn’t pointed out that her article is actually about her time at Mad Men, she revealed that by writing about that time, she found a little bit of closure.
A Chance Encounter at the Emmys
“At the Emmys a couple of years later, I bumped into that showrunner,” Zosia reminisced. “Our shows were both up for the awards. He acted like he didn’t know me. They won all the awards that evening, and I was a little envious of him. But the thing is, he hasn’t really done any new work after that.”